THE DREAMERS' INN
by Vyrazhi
Summary: Some weary sleepers at the Dreamers' Inn never wake up... Rated T.
1. Chapter 1

_**THE DREAMERS' INN**_

_A Lovecraftian Tale by Vyrazhi, ©2013_

**I. **

_Some people _who sleep at the Dreamers' Inn, in my hometown of Leight, Massachusetts, never wake up.

So it is said. 'Tis a wonder that our only boarding place for travelers manages to stay open at all, with the ceaseless grinding of the rumor mill reaching wayfarers' ears before they reach here. Our village's moniker is pronounced as if the "e" were not there, nor any source of illumination. Despite our best efforts to redeem the name of Leight, it is still spoken like a curse. We are God-fearing folk now, in _anno Domini _1893, but some of us weren't two hundred years ago. The witchcraft panic that had hit Salem in 1692 infected us like a fever one year later. Fifty people were sickened, and cured by a visit to Gallows Hill.

My great-great-grandfather and original proprietor of the Inn, Goodman Abner Dawes, was one of them.

My name is Millicent Dawson. Even though I'm four generations descended from him, respectable people in Leight cross to the other side of the street when they see me. If it weren't for my late father's pension, I'd be searching these same streets for men too drunk to care about my ancestry. I'm a spinster at thirty-four, but still pretty according to the Inn's current owner. Not that I'd have Monsieur Thènard! He is no drunkard, but sometimes I wish he were. His eyes, never bloodshot and always keen, are those of a wolf.

Is it he that continues to lend the rumors such credence? Has he dared to murder his own customers?

_Pah! _It's far more likely that the villagers, many of whom are superstitious illiterates, want to keep anyone from having anything to do with the Dreamers' Inn because _they're _terrified. I, for one, am not. I know my great-great-grandfather's establishment for what it is: a broken-down lodging house, greatly refurbished, with three floors and servants' quarters at the top. It's the closest thing that Leight has to a castle, because the guest rooms and garret are contained within a tall turret. The Inn is the very sort that inspires ghosts and unspeakable phantoms to possess one's imagination - even mine. I suppose I cannot blame my naïve neighbors too much. If I'm out in the evening, having a bite of dinner at our only restaurant, I try not to gaze up at that tower. As it darkens in the fading twilight, it slowly turns blacker than any sort of pitch.

What is it about the place that makes me shudder, even though I'm not so silly as to believe it's haunted?

How has it remained a dreamers' refuge for more than two centuries, my ancestors' toil notwithstanding?

Why do I always see it in my own dreams, as it draws me like iron toward a magnet?

Such mysteries are better left unsolved. What I must do is remain calm, and grounded in practicalities.

The rumors state that no visitor to the Dreamers' Inn has ever been a guest for more than one night. Even those travelers who have spent that brief length of time within its walls have departed without a word, in a mad frenzy of escape. I've lived in Leight all my life, and have no reason to pay for a room when I'm safe enough in my late father's house. Nevertheless, I intend to stay not for one night, but three. I shall prove the chatter of my fellow citizens to be foolish gossip, once and for all, and bring more business to the Inn. I receive a share of its profits, being the only living descendant of its owners throughout the generations.

Father's pension is barely holding out, and with a bitter chill in the air, I need some more money for winter.


	2. Chapter 2

**II. **

_The Inn _stands at the end of our largest thoroughfare, which is a few blocks long, but seems a thousand miles. With my heavy valise, I'm fortunate that I only have to walk half that far from the restaurant at which I've just dined. Once every month, I scrounge up enough money to have dinner at the Golden Goose. Despite my reputation in this village, I eventually come to long for the clamor of a crowd. The four walls of my father's house are my sanctuary and prison otherwise. Only Theodora, our cook and housekeeper that we've had since before I was born, keeps me company there. I would take her with me on my monthly outings to Leight's sole restaurant, but she stubbornly says she prefers her own meals all the same.

That's only part of the reason why she won't go, however. I've told her that even at the Golden Goose, the diners there glare at me out of the corners of their eyes and lower them to their plates if I look their way. Theodora is an even more self-contained soul than I am, and loathes being stared at "by all and sundry".

The evening sun is sinking low on the horizon, and the villagers around me are concealed in shadows. I don't want anyone coming up and asking me about my three-night errand - not that they would. When I prove the rumors about my forefathers' establishment wrong, I'll make them all look like fools anyway!

Those unfamiliar with Leight will notice three ever-present things as they travel down its main street: stalwart people, churches, and Cemetery Hill looming in the distance. Ever since I was a child, I sensed an eerie connection among these features of our humble village. Just what that is, I cannot say. They are ordinary enough on the surface, and yet I can't help feeling that there's something sinister about them.

My neighbors are proud, hard-working souls. Most of them live on farms on the outskirts of town. Even so, they trudge nearly every day to its center in order to seek supplies. The men of Leight are burly, with long arms and sunburnt faces, trusting in their toil and suspicious of _learnt _folk. It's just as well that they're illiterate. They wouldn't have much use for books even if they had the coin to buy them. Their wives, far from being what some people would call ladies, are just as industrious and sturdy as their husbands. I see them more often in town, as buying sundries is women's work, but that doesn't mean they're any more inclined to talk to me. They keep to themselves, as I do, but it seems their hearts are under lock and key.

I suspect that a large part of this has to do with the fact that they fear God as much as my family's past. Out of every ten buildings in Leight, at least four are churches. The Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Evangelicals, Lutherans, Methodists, and even more denominations are continually at war. They each claim to believe in the Scriptures, and in the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. However, they also claim that all the others are false, to a greater or lesser degree. As for me? I attend no house of worship, and that is no great loss to me. My father, Lemuel Dawson, said that his own chapel - the one on Cemetery Hill - had been abruptly shuttered one Hallowe'en night. His fellow congregants then fled to other nearby towns.

"_My dear Millie," _he had told me, _"the one true church on this Earth has been lost, and a year too early." _That's another thing I've failed to understand, even though it haunts me as much as the Inn itself does.

Hurrying to get there, I pass the people and churches without much concern. Only the visage of the former Gallows Hill, now containing graves instead of a gibbet, catches my eye. Buried there are not only the fifty-three souls who were hanged during the Purge (or so we called our witchcraft panic), but criminals and paupers. I've often wondered why having no money is considered as great a crime as sorcery or theft, but in this village, if you're poor, then you are cursed. "God helps those who help themselves": so say we. I cannot help myself as I find my feet sprinting rather than walking toward the façade of the Dreamer's Inn.

The sky, now a cool blue-violet twilight, is growing dark. I'll soon leave light (and Leight?) behind. Even though I've been inside the Dreamers' Inn countless times, I've always been a bit scared of the place. Why is it that, even though it's supposed to be a haven for travelers, it seems like a mausoleum instead? I know that once I venture beyond its door, beneath the rickety sign that has announced its presence since the days of Abner Dawes, I'll be in a world unto itself. As such, I pause on the threshold and gaze up at its intimidating turret. Should I turn back and forget about spending a single night there, let alone three?

Then I remember my reasons, both monetary and otherwise, and step inside.


	3. Chapter 3

**III. **

_Ordinarily, _one wouldn't think of the Dreamers' Inn as a mausoleum any more than one would think of the Golden Goose restaurant as a crypt. Journeymen who are just passing through Leight, and rooming at the Inn as a matter of convenience, will see nothing amiss. There are a few splintering floorboards here, and a couple of sagging roof beams there, but these things are only natural for a lodging house that's stood for more than two centuries. I, however, with my wary eyes and cautious steps, notice more ominous flaws: the dry rot in the walls, for instance, and the stairs that are almost murderously steep. How on Earth does Monsieur Thènard keep the Inn open despite its decay and stale air? Perhaps he himself has had a part in spreading rumors about it, challenging brave visitors to spend the entire night in a haunted hotel.

Then again, maybe it all boils down to the Inn being the most immediate place for a night's slumber. When one is tired and hungry, weary from sitting in a carriage or on horseback, then why not stay here?

"Good evening, _Mademoiselle _Dawson," announces an oily voice. "Welcome to the Dreamers' Inn."

My spine stiffens. If this place is a tomb, then Monsieur Thènard is the shifty undertaker who'd give you your six feet of earth once you had passed, then dig you up if your relatives couldn't pay the maintenance fees. His smile resembles a scythe's blade: the one that Death wields, and with which he harvests you.

"Good evening to you too, _Monsieur _Thènard," I tell him as civilly as I can. "I'd like to rent a room, please."

"Certainly." He pauses. "I am surprised to see you here. Can you not stay at your father's house for free?"

"Of course, but I have my reasons. If you _must _know, I'm on an errand to quell all the rumors about this hotel. You and I could both stand to have more revenue coming from it, after all. What better way to do that than to put vicious village talk to rest? You know what the people say: it's haunted, and not by your ordinary ghosts. They also claim that certain people, once they lie down to sleep here, never awaken. _Pah! _If someone wakes up dead, pardon the silly expression, then their heart failed during the night, or they perished from some other natural cause. No devilry is here, and I'm out to prove it once and for all."

"_Mais oui," _he says, grinning. "We two know that, but how are you going to convince the rest of Leight?"

"I intend to spend three consecutive nights here, not just one, and come out none the worse for wear. I know that the people here typically don't listen to a godless spinster. However, if I tell them that there's nothing to fear at the Dreamers' Inn - save a few usual nightmares from sleeping in a strange place - perhaps they will take heed, and tell their traveling friends and relatives to pay this establishment a visit."

"A splendid plan," Thènard replies. "I hope it works, and here is the cost of three nights' lodging." When he reveals it, I wince. It's not exorbitant, meaning that I can still afford it, but barely. With Theodora receiving her month's wages yesterday, plus my paying an ample bill of goods from the grocer, I'll be spent out by the end of my stay. I'm glad that it's almost the end of October: Hallowe'en will arrive in exactly three days. Once it's November, my monthly pension allowance will be full again, and I can start all over.

Still, I feel like a fool. Truly, is there any 'starting over' when one keeps going round in the same circle?

"_Mademoiselle?" _

Startled out of my reverie, I pay him. "Agathe is still serving food in the kitchen," Thènard tells me, referring to his wizened maid-of-all-work. "There aren't enough guests for her to have served dinner in the dining room, so I'm glad you've come." All of a sudden, he leans forward and winks at me. "Should you require company upstairs…"

"Give me my key, and I'll be off."

He opens a drawer behind his porter's desk and hands it over, smirking. "Room two, second floor."


	4. Chapter 4

**IV. **

_There's nothing much _of interest in the lobby: three striped armchairs (one of which has an upholstered arm that's coming unsewn), two tables, a crackling fireplace, and a wrought-iron chandelier. It would behoove Mr. Thènard to tell his servant to dust the cobwebs off of it, and perhaps place some books on the tables. Knowing Agathe, however, she sticks to her duties, and doesn't like to be told anything that she considers superfluous. I've seen her at the Dreamers' Inn since I was a girl, but have always avoided her. I'm relieved to see no sign of the crone in the empty dining room, which I pass on the way to the stairs.

Even when she was younger by twenty-seven years, Agathe's presence was a fearsome one. At fifty, she already appeared to be a quarter century older than that. With eyes that were nearly onyx, narrowed into perpetual slits, she terrified me and unnerved Father. "I wish I could dismiss her," he hissed into my ear when I was only seven, "but she's served here at the Inn since your grandfather's time. It wouldn't be fair. Without her wages here, she'd surely starve." Back then, I didn't think that Agathe required much to eat, with a gaunt frame that reminded me of a skeleton in a maid's dress. Her hair, brown then and gray now, is pulled back tightly into an impeccable bun. She performs her daily tasks in complete silence, or did so in my tender years, and glared at you malevolently if you so much as looked her way. Hate seemed to dart from her bottomless pupils directly into your soul, and from that moment you learned to leave her alone.

_She's not here, Millicent, _I tell myself as I slowly ascend the stairs. _She's up in her room. You're safe now. _

Still, I cling to the wall tightly and hold my breath as I reach the second floor. The door to my room stands before me, closed and locked, and bearing a brass _2 _as the symbol of my destination. I know that behind that door lies safety, and I find myself darting toward it like a hunted rabbit. I jam Monsieur Thénard's key into the lock with a hard jolt, too loud for my sepulchral surroundings, and give it a frightened twist. It takes all my power of self-restraint not to slam the door behind me once it opens, so as to ward off a sudden appearance of Agathe. Besides, I have to turn on the gas lamp. The room is suddenly illuminated, almost warmly, and I smile as I behold a quilted bed. Above it is a diamond-paned window, black as pitch, and next to me is a writing desk. Locking the door and double-bolting it for the night, I sit down at the latter.

There's nothing on the worn and scuffed top of it but a copy of the Holy Bible. More out of boredom than piety, I open it to a certain random point past the middle. Romans 6:23 immediately catches my eye:

"_For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." _

Eternal life? Why would I want such a thing, when even this temporal one of mine is pointless? Day after day, I yearn for company and occupation, yet I can't even get a position as a charwoman here in Leight. Not that I'd want to be a drudge, but one would think I could at least teach or give piano lessons. No one will trust me with their own confidence, however, let alone the welfare of their children. I am not a godly woman by any means, which brings me to the second page to which I suddenly turned - Romans 3:23:

"_For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." _

Do I not know it? Are the powers that be, whether the Trinity or other spirits, unaware of the iniquity I bear? Not only do I carry the burden of my mistakes and wrongdoings, but those of my errant forefathers. I cannot say whether Abner Dawes, the man who built the Dreamers' Inn with his own hands, was Satan's thrall or not. Nevertheless, even after Grandfather's changing our family surname from Dawes to Dawson, the stigma of our bloodline has remained. One might ask why this is so, when other people here in Leight whose kin were hanged during the Purge have had their black marks washed away. The answer is simple: they turned to Christ, and all of their feuding churches, while we Dawsons kept our faith to ourselves.

Hoping for a glimmer of salvation in the Holy Book's pages, I unconsciously turn to one more passage:

"_And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." Hebrews 9:27_

Sighing, I undress for bed and climb beneath the quilt. I straightway fall into slumber, and begin to dream.


	5. Chapter 5

**V. **

_Dry hacking. _The sound assaults my ears, and makes my heart begin to flutter. It's unlike any paroxysm I've ever heard, even when Theodora contracted pneumonia two years ago. What's far worse is I know, instinctively, that it is not she whose body is wracked with illness. It's Lemuel Dawson, on his deathbed.

"_Hold on!" _My voice is lighter, younger, not yet burdened with the weight of sorrow after his passing. Like any good nurse, I rush to his side and wipe the bloody spittle from his lips with a handkerchief. This is no mere dream; it's a recollection, and that's exactly what I did back then. _"I'm here as always, Father." _

"_Millie," _he says weakly, and smiles through the pain of nearly-constant coughing. _"Come closer." _I do, and wince at his fevered breath. _"There's something that I must tell you, at long last." _Every word of his is belabored. His voice reminds me of a desert wind, scorched with sand. Even his sickroom has that acrid air, as if we were in the middle of the Sahara instead of Massachusetts. I myself am hot, and know Father must be. However, I dare not leave his chamber to fetch a wet cloth for fear of missing his last words.

"_They have come for me, and…you must know all that I do before they come for you. Find the keys," _he says before being consumed with another coughing fit, _"in the bottom drawer of my desk. Bring them here." _Again I follow his directions, yet hesitantly. Throughout his life, Father had been very particular about who was allowed to touch his personal possessions, and rummage through his desks and cabinets. Even our taciturn Theodora, who'd never reveal any of his secrets even under duress, was forbidden from doing so. Father gave explicit instructions on which rooms were to be cleaned (kitchen, parlor, and so on), and which were not (his spartan bedroom after Mother died, and private study). That's why it puzzles me, in this nighttime vision as well as in life, to hear him make such a request. Nevertheless, I hurry to obey it.

It takes several tugs of the aforementioned bottom drawer, sticky with disuse, to get it to yield. When it does, I cough at the dust within and pull out a small iron ring with five keys. Each one of them is different, as keys naturally are, yet these five have been bent into the most curious shapes and configurations. I'm tempted to stand beside the desk and stare at them to my heart's content, fingering their bizarre metal shafts, but Father's waiting. Not knowing what he'll tell me, or what he wants me to do with the keys, I take them over to his bedside. Greedily, he grasps them in his long fingers and takes my right hand in his.

"_First," _he announces, slipping one of the unique keys into my palm. _"Second," _he then says, doing the same with another. _"Third. Closet. Church." _With sudden horror, I realize what they open: the three locks to the door of his forbidden study, the closet within it, and the only church to which he's ever belonged. _"The one on Gallows Hill," _he clarifies. I wonder why he's called it that instead of Cemetery Hill. Perhaps, now that he's facing his own hangman in the form of an illness that not even Leight's doctor can diagnose, images of the Purge are haunting him. _"Read and learn all you can, when you're prepared. Take care." _

I couldn't stop myself: _"Why 'take care'? Is something wrong? Who are 'they', Father? Please explain!" _

"_It would take…too long." _He slowly smiles, exposing all of his teeth in the white rictus of a death's-head. Pressing the keys so firmly into my palm that they leave mild scrapes and indentations afterward, Father coughs once more. _"Believe." _With that, his withered hand releases mine and falls to his side limply. He is no longer alive, and our conversation has drained me so much that I can do nothing but sob in fright.

I wake up to find my pillow damp, and my eyes glistening. There is no one around save for me, and the all-encompassing darkness to hide my tears. It's been seventeen years, almost to the day, since Lemuel Dawson departed this mortal world. I feel ashamed of myself, because after nearly two decades, I should not be so stricken with grief. Father, at this point in time, should be a distant memory, a framed portrait on the wall of my house and mind. However, he is not. He has evidently remained with me, in a locked compartment of my mental faculties that only dreams can reopen. Why now? Why here, in this very Inn? If the keys that he gave me so long ago - and which I've reconfined to the drawer from which I took them - are back in his old house, then why didn't I dream about them back there? This is too strange, and scary.

_When you're prepared, _Father had told me, _read and learn all you can. _Prepared for what, I wonder?


End file.
